Pratique du Shadowing: Speak Like a CFO: General Motors (Free PDF Download) - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec YouTube
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One of the most effective ways to improve your English is through analysis and imitation.
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One of the most effective ways to improve your English is through analysis and imitation.
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In today's class, we're going to be looking at the language the CFO of GM uses to describe how her company performed.
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So we're going to look at it through two perspectives.
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The first one is the structure she uses.
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So she uses a pyramid principle where we get complex information and present it in a very simple way.
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and secondly language.
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So what are the words, phrases, expressions she's using to get her point across?
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We're going to watch a video together and we're going to analyze all those details.
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Hi my name is Chris, I was a finance manager for many years but now I'm an English teacher.
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So if English is your second language and you work in the area of finance,
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please subscribe to this channel because each week I'm going to be releasing content to help you improve your English
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in the area of finance.
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So let's look at the structure she uses.
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Generally CEOs and CFOs, they tend to follow a similar structure when they're explaining how their company performed.
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So the pyramid principle, it's not something I invented, it's been around for a while,
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and the idea is it's a communication concept to take complex information and present it in a very simple way.
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So let's have a look at this illustration here.
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At the top of the pyramid, we mentioned the end result, like the results, revenue growth,
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profit growth, whatever is relevant to their audience.
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In this case, we're going to say revenue growth of 10% is the final result.
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On the next layer of the pyramid, CFOs generally talk about two to three big factors that can contributed to that result,
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in which case it is revenue growth.
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In this example, the first factor is because product X sold well, and the second factor is there was an increase in share.
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Below that, we find the details as to why product X sold well.
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It's because of a successful marketing campaign and a price reduction that perhaps resulted in more volume.
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And the detail related to why they gain market share was
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because they have a new sales team that are doing well and a new product launch.
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So let's see this CFO use this principle in action.
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So we're going to watch the video together
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and I'm going to leave the pyramid up on the screen
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and as she mentions each one of the factors or details you'll start to see them appear in the pyramid.
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Divya fourth quarter earnings much stronger than the street was expecting.
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That's why your stock is up almost 4% pre-market.
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When you look at the fourth quarter, do you look at this and say big improvement in terms of North America,
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but you have some concerns perhaps with China?
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Yeah Phil, strong results across the board for the quarter
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and for the year and this was despite the challenges we faced from a commodity and FX perspective.
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Strength in North America as you talked about,
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we still posted two billion of equity income in China for the year and we had strength in GM financial as well.
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And if you look at these different segments, I would say that North America was helped by our truck launch and the continued strength in our crossovers,
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as well as a laser focus on costs.
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And in China, our execution continues to be strong in a volatile environment.
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And in the fourth quarter, we were impacted more by our launch costs as well.
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We had $100 million of impact from our whole new launches of vehicles coming up in 2019 that also impacted our results.
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But all of this points to the earnings resiliency of the company and the execution in a volatile environment.
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So here we can clearly see why their results were so good.
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It was due to three big factors.
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The first one was the performance of the company in the North America market
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and that was because of the success of the launch of their trucks and a focus on controlling their costs.
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the second factor as to why the results were so good was
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because of the Chinese market she mentioned that they are executing well
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so I'm assuming that means their strategy and I like
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that she said even though they had an impact of 100 million of launch costs
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which is a bad thing their results were still good the third factor was GM financial
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so she mentioned that that part of the business was also doing well, but she did not mention the detail behind that.
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So the next time you need to describe how your company performed, you can use that pyramid principle.
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I've also developed my own course.
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It's called Describing Financial Performance in English.
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It's similar to what we did today, but it goes into a lot more detail with advanced sentence structures,
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advanced vocabulary, and some other principles that we can apply to communicate more effectively and with confidence.
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So if you're interested, you can find that link here in the description below.
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So let's go into the second part of the class where we talk about the interesting language she uses.
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So I'll be pulling out anything I think you need to know that is relevant.
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I've accumulated all these words into a PDF document, which you can download in the description of this video and it includes the new words,
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the definitions, and some examples.
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So let's get started.
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Divya, fourth quarter earnings much stronger than the street was expecting.
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That's why your stock is up almost 4%.
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So when we talk about results that are good, the words we generally use are the adjective,
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strong, the noun strength, or the verb strengthen.
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So during this video, you're going to hear them using these words very often.
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He says your stock is up.
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So to be up.
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So if something is up, it means it increased.
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Okay.
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So stock price has increased because of these strong results.
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Pre-market.
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When you look at the fourth quarter, you look at this and say, big improvement in terms of North America, but you have some concerns perhaps with China?
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Yeah, Phil, strong results across the board for the quarter and for the year.
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She then says strong results across the board.
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Okay, across the board, that's a nice little expression.
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That means when something happens across the board, it applies to all segments, or categories.
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So here she says strong results across the board.
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It means there were strong results in every part of the business.
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And this was despite the challenges we faced from a commodity and FX perspective, strength in North America, as you talked about,
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we still posted 2 billion of equity income in China for the year.
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And we had strength in GM financial as well.
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And if you look at these different segments, I would say that North America was helped by our truck launch and the continued strength in our crossovers,
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as well as a laser focus on costs.
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Laser focus.
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So we use that expression to say, to really concentrate on a particular area.
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She's just giving a little bit more emphasis to the verb focus by using laser.
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And in China, our execution continues to be strong in a volatile environment.
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And in the fourth quarter, we were impacted more by our launch costs as well.
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We had 100 million of impact from our whole new launches of vehicles coming up in 2019.
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That also impacted our results.
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Our new launch of vehicles coming up in 2019.
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So to come up or coming up as she used here is a phrasal verb.
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And we use that with dates to say that something is happening soon or will happen soon.
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So I'm recording this video in October and Christmas is in December.
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So it's almost here.
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So I could say Christmas is coming up.
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So she's saying the launch of some of their vehicles is happening soon.
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but all of this points to the earnings resiliency of the company
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and the execution in a volatile environment all of this points to the resiliency of the company
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and the execution in a volatile environment so i like
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that sentence she used there so points to we use points to it means to suggest
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that something is true so she's saying because we have faced all these challenges and costs,
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we still did well, and that means the company is resilient.
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So that's the true statement she's making.
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And the last word she uses here is volatile,
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which means it moves up and down significantly and is hard to predict.
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I want to talk a little bit more about China, Divya, only because you guys are a great way of focusing
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so many people's attention on China and this question about whether or not the economy there is slowing down.
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Yes, you had the launch cost that impacted fourth quarter results.
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Your equity income was down about 33 percent fourth quarter over fourth quarter.
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How much of that do you look at as the launch cost and how much do you look at it and say, look, we have a market here that is slowing down?
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I guess what we're trying to get an understanding of is what's happening with the Chinese economy.
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I like you.
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He says we want to get an understanding of what is happening in the Chinese economy.
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So instead of saying, I want to understand, you can say, I want to get an understanding of something.
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And in this case, it is the Chinese economy.
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I think if you look at China, obviously Q4 was a very volatile quarter and we saw pressures from a volume and pricing perspective.
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in January you're seeing signs of stabilization across a number of indicators early days but we're keeping an eye on it.
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We are seeing signs of something okay so we are starting to see
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or notice something so you can use that expression too we are seeing signs of something.
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We are keeping an eye on.
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So when you're keeping an eye on something, it means you're looking at something or monitoring something very closely.
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And there's also talk of stimulus that we're keeping an eye on.
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And if you look at our execution within that, we're constructive about the fact that we are in a very unique position in China.
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We have 20 years of market leadership.
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Our brands Brands are very strong and we have excellent launches coming up across all of our brands.
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And the strength of Cadillac, Cadillac was up across the board about 20% year over year in 2018 in a declining market environment.
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So what we're focused on is what we can execute
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and we are cautiously optimistic about the measures that are being talked about.
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But what we can control is our execution.
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So as you can see, with just a couple minutes of video, we're able to learn a lot of things by just paying attention to the small details.
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My students who speak English really well all use this technique.
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They observe and they try and replicate.
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If you like the video, please give me a like and share with any of your friends that work in the finance industry.
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If there's a video or a company you want me to analyze, you can put it in the comments below and I'll be sure to try and do it for you.
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Why Practice Speaking with This CFO Video?
Want to speak English with the clarity and confidence of a top executive? This video featuring GM's CFO is your secret weapon! It’s not just about learning finance terms—it’s about mastering real-world communication in a high-stakes context. By analyzing her structure and language, you’ll learn to simplify complex ideas, a skill that works in meetings, presentations, or even casual conversations. Plus, using the shadowing technique (repeating her words aloud as she speaks) will train your mouth to move like a native, boosting fluency faster than traditional drills. It’s the ultimate english speaking practice for anyone ready to level up!
Grammar & Expressions in Context
The CFO’s speech is packed with actionable phrases. Let’s break down 3 must-learn structures:
- "Strength in [segment] was helped by...": This phrase links results to causes, perfect for explaining success. Example: "Our team’s growth was helped by new client partnerships."
- "Despite [challenge], we posted [result]": Show resilience by balancing obstacles and wins. Try: "Despite tight deadlines, we finished the project early."
- "All of this points to [key takeaway]": Wrap up ideas with authority. Use it like: "Increased sales and positive feedback point to a strong quarter."
Imitate these, and you’ll sound polished and persuasive in no time!
Common Pronunciation Traps
Even advanced learners stumble on these words. Let’s fix them:
- "Commodity": Pronounce it "kuh-MAH-duh-tee" (not "com-MOH-dih-tee"). Stress the second syllable.
- "Volatile": Say "VAH-luh-tile" (not "vol-AH-tile"). The first syllable is short and sharp.
- "Resiliency": It’s "ri-ZIL-ee-en-see" (not "reh-ZIL-yen-see"). Focus on the "zil" sound.
Use shadowspeak (shadowing) to mimic her rhythm—pause, stress, and intonation. Record yourself and compare; you’ll notice huge improvements in your english pronunciation!
Ready to speak like a pro? Hit play, start shadowing, and watch your confidence soar. Every repetition brings you closer to fluency—you’ve got this!
Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?
Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.